


i've been waiting for someone, i've been praying for someone (i think that i could be in love with someone like you)

by bookishandbossy



Series: the next four years (college au) [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: College AU, F/M, and cute, awkward science babies being awkward, from a tumblr prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo Fitz doesn't like college.  Or people.  Or much of anything, really.  Then Jemma Simmons knocks on his door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've been waiting for someone, i've been praying for someone (i think that i could be in love with someone like you)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Shiksa Goddess" from The Last Five Years.

Two weeks into his college experience, Leo Fitz had already decided that he doesn't like it. The classes were all too easy, his classmates generally oblivious, his meal plan too limited, and his RA, a short-tempered, sunglasses-wearing sophomore named Grant Ward, had completely overreacted to one tiny fire. He'd had it well under control by the time the fire department had been called and he thought that he hardly deserved the long-winded lecture Ward had given him. Worst of all, his regular Friday night Doctor Who marathon was currently being disturbed by the very energetic sex someone was having next door. There was moaning and screaming and lots of creaking and the phrase “oh god” had been said at least five times by the time he got to the opening credits. Wincing at a particularly loud bed-breaking creak, he slid a pair of chunky headphones on and attempted to concentrate on Captain Jack Harkness' grin.

Then there was a knock on his door, three polite but insistent raps. He glared at the door and hoped that whoever it was would go away. Ward hadn't let him hang out a “Keep Out” sign, claiming that it was against official policy, but he thought that he'd scowled his way through enough all-hall activities and classes to make it clear: Leo Fitz didn't like people and, after eighteen years of being periodically bullied, teased, and patronized, he had no intention of starting.

The knocks came again, loud enough to be heard through his headphones, and there was a flash of white under his door. Curious, Fitz stooped down to find a neatly folded note, written in looping cursive on a pristine piece of monogrammed stationery proclaiming itself to be from the desk of JCS. 

_Dear occupant of room 231_ , it read,  
 _I apologize for bothering you but I was wondering if you happened to have the textbook for Quantum Theory. Considering that all I've been able to find so far was a very battered Physics 1 textbook offered to me by the drunk occupant of room 214, I've calculated that the odds of you having one are approximately 167.5 to 1. Or, very bad. If you do happen to have the textbook, please reply with a note stating so. If not, please reply with a note stating so and I'll leave you in peace._  
 _Sincerely,  
Jemma Simmons (room 230)_

Fitz rummaged through the chaos of his desk and finally pulled out a paper napkin, scribbling a quick note back.

_Dear Jemma Simmons,_  
 _I do have the book, actually. I didn't know that there were any other freshmen in Quantum Theory—how'd you get in? And why don't you have the book yourself?  
\--Leopold Fitz (room 231)_

The reply came almost instantly.  
 _Dear Leopold Fitz (do you prefer Fitz or Leopold?),_  
 _I have the textbook. It's just in my room, which is currently occupied by my roommate and her...companion. Can't you hear them? (I envy you if you've found a way to block it out.) I wanted to finish all the problem sets for October but I need the book to check some things. (I'm biochem, really, but I thought it'd be good to take a challenging class—my biophysical chemistry class is embarrassingly easy.) If you wouldn't mind lending it to me?_  
 _\--Jemma_  
 _P.S. I got into the class because I completed one of the professor's practice exams in eight minutes and got a 112%._

_Dear Jemma,_  
 _Oh, I can hear them. Unfortunately. And I go by Fitz—no one ever calls me Leopold._  
 _\--Fitz_  
 _P.S. I finished that practice exam in six minutes._  
 _P.P.S. I'm engineering._

_Dear Fitz,_  
 _If you use your engineering skills to soundproof our room, I'll bake for you. I make an excellent salted caramel brownie. Plus cinnamon rolls if you lend me the book?  
\--Jemma _

Fitz swung open the door, ready to offer her the book, and swallowed. Hard. Jemma Simmons was probably the prettiest girl he'd ever met and his tongue was tying itself in knots and he thought that he might trip over his own two feet if he tried to move. Because the prettiest girl he'd ever met was standing in his doorway, wearing a soft pink sweater and smiling shyly at him, brown hair curling around her shoulders, and he was fairly sure that his t-shirt had at least three honey mustard stains on it.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “I'm Jemma. But you, um...you already know that.”

“I'm Fitz,” he managed eventually and held the book out to her. “You needed this?”

“Yes, I did. Thank you.” She took it but she didn't leave, shifting from foot to foot in the doorway. “I was wondering if you'd like to work on the problem set with me? You don't have to if you don't want to, I just thought that since we were the only freshmen in the class and you seem to know what you're doing, and since some of the concepts in chapter twenty were a little confusing, and I...I'm probably babbling right now, aren't I? I'm sorry.”

“No, it's fine,” Fitz said slowly. You can babble at me as much as you want. “I, um, I'd really like that. Though maybe we shouldn't work on it here?” He gestured at the wall as someone next door emitted a particularly loud moan and both Fitz and Jemma winced.

“Do you like food? I know an all-night diner that my friend Skye says does really good burgers.” She was twisting a curl around her finger as she spoke and Fitz couldn't take his eyes off it, too transfixed to realize that she'd asked him a question for at least a minute.

“I like food, definitely. Food's good,” he finally blurted out. “Just let me grab some stuff and I'll be ready to go in a minute. Do you need to get—well, you probably can't...”

“I have my wallet and keys, though not my jacket. I left the room to run down to the kitchen and when I got back, there was a lock on the door,” she explained sheepishly. “I'll be fine.”

“Borrow one of my jumpers,” he found himself offering and five minutes later, as they headed down the stairs of their dorm together, he couldn't help thinking that she looked better in his blue jumper than he ever had, the sleeves rolled up to her wrists and her nose buried underneath the collar as she protested that it was too cold and he teased her about English weather.

It got easier to talk to her as they walked on, slowly trading theories and stories. His ten-year-old-self's attempt to build his own TARDIS for her childhood chemistry set, his doddering calculus professor for her hapless chemistry TA, his working knowledge of coding for her fluency in Elvish. “How'd you end up with a single?” she asked after a long round of complaints about her roommate. “When I asked at Res Life, they told me that every freshman had to have a roommate.”

“I might have made something explode during move-in when I was trying to set up my worktable. It wasn't on purpose!” he protested when she started laughing.

“Of course it wasn't,” she said, rolling her eyes at him, and grabbed his hand to tug him forward into the diner. She kept her fingers curled around his long after they sat down in their corner booth, like an old habit that she didn't even realize she was slipping into, and Fitz didn't say anything about it, still too amazed at the simple fact of her to let go. Because there she was. Jemma Simmons, tapping her pencil against her textbook and biting on her lower lip in concentration as she wrote furiously on a yellow legal pad, stealing his sweet potato fries without asking and absent-mindedly swatting at him when he speculatively eyed her grilled cheese, licking tomato soup off her spoon in a way that made him fidget beside her in the booth, talking too fast and just fast enough, letting him steer them both off into long conversational tangents about Harry Potter and monkeys. Her own particular brand of wonderful, he realized suddenly and beamed down at her with excitement at the idea that there was only one Jemma Simmons and that he'd been the one lucky enough to discover her.

And when they walked home together in the pale pink dawn light, leaning against each other sleepily and still arguing about Schrodinger's cat, Leo Fitz looked down at Jemma Simmons and thought that college might not be so bad—might, in fact, be the best years of his life--with her in it.


End file.
